The Marble Collector

23

Cat leaves me after a dinner of salmon, garlic fondant potatoes and peas and green beans made by Mel, who’s a marvel in the kitchen and often cooks with produce from the small allotment here on the yard, helped by a few of the inmates, but not grumpy Max. He has nothing to do with anything and complains about everything. Cat kisses me gently on the forehead and I like it, it is so long since I’ve felt that kind of intimacy. I now realise that visits from Gina are cordial in comparison, not affectionate. Sabrina’s boys shower me with cuddles and hugs and thumps and clambering, and I love that; Sabrina’s hugs are maternal-like, always worried about me; but Cat, I feel a connection with her, an intimacy. I look up to her for more, but perhaps that is asking for too much on what we jokingly call our first date. My great fear, as Lea wheels me to my bedroom for the evening, is that I won’t remember Cat tomorrow. How many times did this very event occur in the last year for me to forget it again the next day or a few days later, maybe even a year?

‘Penny for your thoughts, Fergus,’ Lea says, picking up on my concerns as usual.

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know?’

She helps me up out of my chair and I sit on the toilet. She leaves to give me privacy and returns to help when I’m finished.

Do I want Cat to have to do this for me? Is there a future for us? Am I going to improve? I was happy here, bumbling along, existing, living, being cared for, no pressures. But with her out there, knowing there is a life that I had but didn’t know it until today, it makes me uneasy. I need to be there, I should be there. I need to get better, I need to wipe my own bloody arse.

‘But,’ Lea says, cutting into my thoughts, ‘the other way of looking at it is that there’s someone there for you, waiting for you, helping you. Someone who loves you. That should motivate you, Fergus.’

I’m confused. Have I said those thoughts aloud?

‘And the other thing is, you’ve remembered quite a lot more today than usual. That’s major progress. Remember when you couldn’t move your right arm? And then all of a sudden you did? Knocked that glass of water right over on top of me, but I didn’t care, I was jumping up and down like a happy lunatic, had to hold my boobs and everything, remember?’

I laugh along with her, remembering the moment.

‘Glad that smile is back now, Fergus. I know it’s scary, changes can be scary. But remember it’s all good, you’re getting better every single day.’

I nod, thankful.

‘Have you had enough for the day?’ she asks, standing at the end of my bed, holding my feet like she doesn’t even realise it.

‘Why?’

‘Because you’ve a few visitors to see you. I thought I’d wait and see how you’re doing before telling them if they can come in or not. Just maybe you’ve had enough today. I don’t want to tire you out.’

‘No, no, I’m not tired at all,’ I lie. I do feel exhausted from the day, the places my mind has brought me, the day with Cat, but I’m curious. I look at the clock. It’s eight p.m. ‘Who’s here?’

‘Your brothers.’

‘All of them?’ I say, surprised. I’ve seen them of course over the past few years, but never all of us together.

‘Well there’s five of them, I don’t know if that’s all of them.’

Five. Is that all of them? No Hamish. There hasn’t been a Hamish for forty years, but I’ve always felt that he’s missing. No. Five is not all of them.

‘Will I tell them to come in? It’s okay if you don’t want to,’ she says, concerned.

‘It’s okay. Tell them I want to see them.’

‘Okay. And Dr Loftus will probably call in to see you as well.’

Dr Loftus, the resident psychologist I have weekly sit-downs with, has obviously heard the news of my memory today.

‘I’m off to the office to do some paperwork, but Grainne is here if you need her.’

Grainne. Who grunts when she lifts me from my chair to anywhere like I’m a sack of potatoes she wants to get rid of. ‘Thanks, Lea.’

‘You’re welcome.’ She winks, then she’s gone.

I hear them before I see them and they have me smiling before they even arrive in the door, a bunch of teenagers pushing, shoving and bouncing off each other as they make their way in, though they don’t look that way any more.

Angus, the oldest, is sixty-three and has practically lost all his hair, Duncan is sixty-one, I’m fifty-nine, Tommy is fifty-five, Bobby the charmer is fifty and Joe the baby is forty-six.

‘Surprise!’ they announce, ducking their heads in the door.

‘Sssh,’ someone says outside, probably Grainne, and they all grumble and give her abuse as they close the door on her.

‘We heard you had a good day,’ Angus says. ‘So we thought we’d celebrate.’ He takes out a bottle of whisky from his coat. ‘I know you can’t drink it, but we fucking can so not a word out of you.’

They laugh and try to find enough places in the small room to perch, settle and sit.

‘Who told you I had a good day?’

‘Cat,’ Duncan says easily, to a few disgruntled stares from the others.

‘You know Cat?’

‘Who doesn’t fucking know Cat? Oh, that’s right, you didn’t until today,’ Tommy says, and that’s the ice-breaker everyone needed. Tommy slides the chair over to Bobby for him to have. Bobby sits down despite his brother being older, but some things never change.

‘She said you told her about the swear jar,’ Bobby says.

‘I did.’

‘When did you remember that?’

‘I’m surprised you even remember that,’ Duncan says. ‘You were always off stuffing worms up your hole.’

They explode with laughter while Bobby protests with, ‘That was one time, all right!’

Dr Loftus enters. ‘Do I hear a party in here?’ he asks jovially, then fixes me with that intense look. There’s barely room for all of us in here; it gets hot quickly, particularly under his gaze.

‘So tell us, Fergus,’ Angus says, pouring Dr Loftus some whisky. ‘How did you remember the swear jar?’

I look out of the window, the moon high in the indigo sky, full and perfect, and I think of Sabrina. Lea’s dimples, Sabrina’s nose. That got it started.

‘The moon,’ I say.

‘You don’t believe in that voodoo stuff?’ Angus says.

‘I do,’ Tommy says. ‘I could tell you a thing or two.’

‘I do too,’ Duncan agrees.

‘There could be something in it, all right,’ Dr Loftus says, rubbing the stubble on his face. ‘It’s been an interesting day so far.’

‘Sabrina could never sleep during a full moon,’ I say, and they keep a respectful silence. They’re a rowdy bunch but they know their place.

Joe hasn’t said anything at all since he entered, the baby in the corner, observant and concerned. Self-contained. I’m surprised he’s here at all, but appreciative.

‘Which one of you stole the fucking marble swear jar?’ I say suddenly, which sends them into a spin, laughing. Angus literally nearly pisses himself and launches into a spiel about his prostate, Tommy who smokes too much almost coughs to death. They argue and blame one another, voices raised over each other, fingers pointed, the banter flying.

I remember the moment. There were about fifty marbles in the jar, we’d had a busy swearing month that time. I’d made a new friend in secondary school, Larry ‘Lampy’ Brennan, who was big into swearing. He’d get himself into trouble and I’d get him out of it. My favourite rainbow cub scout had landed itself in the jar after I’d told Bobby he was a fat fuck and I desperately wanted it back. I’d been to the chemist every week, not caring what was in the brown paper bag, I’d helped peel potatoes, carrots, cleaned the toilet outside, I was the best boy that month.

‘It was probably you and you can’t remember,’ Angus says as soon as he’s gathered himself. ‘You’re not getting away with that.’

We all laugh.

‘I don’t think it was me,’ I say, really believing it, feeling the wrench of finding it gone.

‘To be honest, I always thought it was you,’ Tommy says. ‘You were always going on about the… what was it called, lads?’

‘Rainbow cub scout,’ they all say in unison, apart from Joe.

Dr Loftus laughs at them.

‘You kept on at Ma about swapping it with another one, but she wouldn’t let you,’ Tommy recalls.

‘She was a hard one,’ Angus shakes his head, ‘bless her soul. I thought it was you too, to be fair.’

‘It was me,’ Joe finally speaks up and everyone turns to stare at him in surprise. He laughs, guiltily, not sure whether he’s about to be beaten up.

‘It can’t have been you,’ I say. ‘What were you – two? Three?’

‘Three, one of my first memories. I remember pulling the kitchen chair over to the shelf, pulling it down. I put it in my cart – remember the wooden one with the blocks?’

Bobby nods.

‘Just you two lads had that, we never had anything so fancy,’ Angus teases, but there’s truth in it. Bobby and Joe always had more than we ever did, the last two babies while we were all out of the house working and giving Ma money that she poured into those babies, mostly Joe.

‘I pulled it down the alley, behind the house, then threw it over the wall at the end. It smashed.’

‘Where was Ma?’ I ask, stunned. I never suspected Joe, not for a second, the rest of us fought for weeks about that.

‘Chatting to Mrs Lynch about something, something important, heads together, smoking, you remember.’

We chuckle at the image.

‘She noticed I was gone at one point. I remember her grabbing me in the alley and dragging me and the cart home. So it was me. Sorry, lads.’

‘Jesus, good one, Joe. You got us.’

He’s earned some respect in the room and we think about that revelation in a surprised silence.

‘You could’ve caught a cold, I suppose,’ I say, thinking of Ma’s fear of losing Joe, and they all look at me in surprise and laugh their arses off again.

‘We brought you something,’ Angus says as the laughter dies down. ‘One game and we’re gone, if that’s okay with Dr Loftus?’

‘Perfectly fine with me.’

‘Tada!’ Duncan lifts up a game of Aggravation.

When a member of the family leaves or dies, it changes the dynamics of a family. People move and shift, take up places they either wanted to have or are forced into roles they never wanted. It happens without anybody noticing, but it’s shifting all the time.

The week that we heard Hamish left Ireland for London, and the week I’m in trouble with the gardai for being with Hamish when he beat up those boys in school, Ma is like a banshee. She won’t let any of us leave the house, go anywhere, do anything. Angus has a school dance she won’t let him go to, which is a big deal, so he’s in a foul mood especially as Siobhan was going to let him pop her cherry. It’s pissing rain outside and we’re killing each other, testosterone levels high as we’re all on top of each other in the two-bed house. Mattie is close to beating the living daylights out of all of us and he goes to the pub for the umpteenth time that day.

I come up with an idea. I spend an hour in a corner of our bedroom, the only space and peace that I can find, and I work on it. Duncan accuses me of wanking and gets a clatter over the head from Angus, which is surprising, the first protective action from him. He’s probably surprised himself but he stands by it and for the first time Ma doesn’t punish him because he only did her job by telling Duncan off, which makes Angus and Ma allies, and Angus and me allies. The dynamics are shifting and it’s confusing.

I come into the living room with a handmade game of Aggravation, a game I’d seen in my marble book. It’s a board game for up to six players and the object of the game is to have all players’ pieces reach the home section of the board. The playing pieces are glass marbles, and we can choose our own as long as we can tell them apart. The game’s name comes from the action of capturing an opponent’s piece by landing on its space, which is known as aggravating – something we’d been doing to each other all week since Hamish left for good.

We play the game. We sit around the dining table, and Ma and Mattie can’t believe it as for one whole hour we battle it out on the cardboard game. Bobby wins the first game. I am the best marble player, but this game has nothing to do with skill and everything to do with the roll of the dice. Bobby the charmer has always been the luckiest bastard of all of us.

We play that game all day, every day for a week until Ma is sick of us under her feet and says we can go out. In a way it teaches us about finding our place, our base, in the family and not just through the game, but from the sitting down and spending so much time together, quarantined together and learning to live without Hamish.

We play it again in my room forty years later; not the homemade version but a real game that Duncan has bought. Bobby wins again.

‘You lucky bastard!’ Angus says, disbelievingly. ‘Every single time.’

I roll the marbles in my left hand, my right side was the paralysed side, the side that now has limited movement, so I couldn’t knuckle down like I used to, even if I wanted to. But I like the feel of them in my hand, rolling them around, and I like the familiar clink as they tap against each other. It’s rhythmic and it’s relaxing. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say suddenly.

They stop bickering and look at me.

‘For all those years. What I did. I’m sorry.’

‘Ah would you stop it, you’ve nothing to be sorry for,’ Angus says. ‘We were all… we all had our own thing going on.’

I start to cry and I can’t stop.

Dr Loftus politely tells them to leave, and I feel their supportive hands on my head and shoulders, patting me as they say their goodbyes. Angus stays with me, my protective big brother that stepped up to the plate when his nemesis had disappeared. He hugs me, holds me, rocks me, cries with me, until my tears finally subside and I fall asleep, utterly exhausted.